


Pretentious

by spaceyquill



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, and they all know each other, basically everyone lives, dreaded homecomings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:44:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6886096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceyquill/pseuds/spaceyquill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starkiller Base is destroyed, and Phasma finds herself with nowhere else to go but home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretentious

**Author's Note:**

> This was the result of a tumblr prompt saying: "Captain Phasma returns home to her father after the destruction of Starkiller Base. Her father is Boba Fett, after giving her a hard time he (or his partner, one of the Twi’lek’s from Jabba’s palace) reminisces about Boba’s failure to make Phasma feel better."
> 
> Kept to as close to 1k words as possible, because tumblr.

Phasma hadn’t gone _home_ in decades.

She’d never had an opportunity before; the First Order never allowed it. Once she enrolled in the officer’s program on Mandalore, she was theirs to control, moving about the galaxy like a piece on a dejarik board.

Now, though, Phasma hardly had much choice. With her armor still dirtied from the trash compactor that had claimed her cloak, and piloting an acquired TIE fighter sputtering from the explosion of Starkiller Base, she barely made the journey to the nearest space station.

Phasma’s armor earned her no leverage in neutral territory surrounded by smugglers, ruffians, and pirates down on their luck. The small barge she convinced to drop her off in the Mandalore system demanded hazard pay on top of the ferrying fee—a smart move on their part, what with the almost mythic stories about Mandalorians circulating among people who had never crossed one before.

Home had never been a specific dot on the galactic map so much as it was where her family resided at any given moment. A part of Phasma was relieved to not be tethered to a physical location that could be there one minute and gone the next. Her _buir_ —father, the one who took her in before she could remember and raised her as his own—may have moved countless times during her time in the Order, but he always sent her his new coordinates.

This time it was the planet Kalevala in the Mandalore system. As she expected, his unassuming home sat in the middle of nowhere: a forest to one side, a lake to another, and expansive fields between, no doubt riddled with traps, or at the very least sensors.

The barge landed well away from the house and took off before Phasma had even reached the recommended safe distance of fifteen meters.

The weather-beaten house hardly betrayed the successful bounty hunter who lived there. The barn, easily three times as large, was where Phasma suspected his old ship sat. She’d forgotten how long he’d lived here; might’ve been two years, might’ve been ten. This was the first time she’d ever laid eyes on it, yet she barged right in the front door as if she’d lived there all her life.

A green-skinned Twi’lek, her lekku tied into a large knot wrapped in a kerchief, jumped up from her breakfast at a large table in the entry room. She scanned an armor set she’d probably never seen before, fear in her large eyes.

Hesitantly, Phasma removed her helmet, bright blonde hair flopping about in newfound freedom. Even just that small gesture left Phasma feeling vulnerable. But she remembered this woman—Oola—from her earliest memories. The Twi’lek was someone her father had rescued well before Phasma was born, and while they lived together it’s not like they were ever married. Phasma was almost surprised she was still around.

Oola’s expression softened with recognition. _“Kih’tracyn!”_

Phasma cringed at her childhood nickname. _Little fire_. Because of her boundless energy and enthusiasm.

“Where’s _buir?”_ she asked.

Oola ran over to hug Phasma through her dirty armor, rambling in her hybrid Mando’a-Ryl that her father was in the barn.

The _Slave I_ boasted a few extra burn marks since Phasma last saw it, but otherwise it looked much the same. The man descending the boarding ramp in work clothes, however, was a little rounder than she remembered, his hair every shade of gray.

Boba Fett stopped halfway down, where he was still eye-level with her.

Phasma stood a little straighter under his hardened stare. Something she probably picked up from him.

He ran a rag through his hands, looking her up and down and shaking his head. “Your armor’s kriffin’ pretentious.”

“Wouldn’t expect _you_ to—” she bit her tongue, her glare darkening to match his. Of course Mandalorians understood symbolism; their forged sets of armor were one large boast of their own accomplishments. But he wouldn’t approve of _her_ symbolism: armor coated in the chromium salvaged from a ship once used by Emperor Palpatine. One large boast, flaunting the power of a Force user.

Silence permeated.

“When you left, I distinctly remember you vowing to never come back to our ‘backwater crater,’” he said. He lost half a foot descending to the ground, bustling about the ship under her nose.

“You lived on Mandalore when I said that,” she sniffed. “I didn’t lie.”

“What’re you doin’ here?”

 _You sent coordinates_. “I had nowhere else to go, _buir._ ”

“What happened to your First Order?”

Phasma arched a brow. Apparently he didn’t keep tabs on galactic events now that he wasn’t an active bounty hunter, but certainly major news had to find its way to this isolated farm.

“I was basically the key to Starkiller Base’s destruction. After my treachery, I didn’t stick around to see what remained of the First Order.” They still had their Supreme Leader and would rise again, she knew. Just not with her.

“You turned on them?” He finally flashed her his full attention, something Phasma rarely earned.

“They were relying more and more on a temperamental Force wielder. An empire is made by its soldiers, the vast number of people who can fight and defend, not one person. An enemy team jumped me and…”

Maybe her aversion to holding the Force in high regard came from him.

Fett circled his rag around: _continue_.

“It was either my life or the disruption of the base shield. Then they tossed me in a trash compactor,” she grumbled.

Fett threw back his head with laughter.

Phasma gritted her teeth, just waiting for it. He’d tell her how foolish she was to join the Academy when she could’ve carried on his legacy. How he’d warned her not to get involved with the Order, after he knew how the Empire they emulated had been torn down.

“Just like your _buir,_ ” he finally said, his grin looking altogether foreign on his face. “I got tossed into a sarlacc pit on Tatooine. Wanna see the scars?”

Phasma rolled her eyes, clamping down on this surge of humor she wasn’t expecting to ever feel from visiting her father again. “No, I don’t,” she said, waving him down as he started pulling up his shirt.

Oola hurried into the barn then, holding a plate of steaming sweetcakes. “Breakfast! Come, eat!”

“Kriffin’ better take a shower, first,” Fett told Phasma as she reached for the food. “You smell like _osik_.”

“I’d gladly take a shower… if you had anything but short clothes for me to wear.”

He threw his rag at her.

There was no grand welcome home, but with Fett’s casual acceptance, Phasma felt like she’d never left. It seemed natural to be here, with the father who’d been so disappointed at her joining the Academy, but now talked to her as if she’d continued the family legacy. As if she’d been proudly wearing her adopted name all these years. His name. His father’s name.

“Hey, _kih’tracyn_ ,” he called after her as she walked back toward the house, “what’re you goin’ by, now?”

She puffed up. “Phasma.” Only the name that struck fear into the heart of any stormtrooper under her command.

“Kriffin’ pretentious.”


End file.
